


Here and Now

by Callisto



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Curtain Fic, M/M, permanent injury (Dean), robo!sam, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:04:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dean likes to have his first coffee of the day looking out the kitchen window. Depending on the night he’s had, it may be the only time he gets to stand brace-free, nodding at the neighbors and raising his mug at them like he’s part of it all.</i>
</p><p>  <i>Like he doesn’t have a brother in heaven, a working knowledge of hell, and a back brace care of a dying angel.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Here and Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roque_clasique](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Roque_clasique).



Dean likes to have his first coffee of the day looking out the kitchen window. Depending on the night he’s had, it may be the only time he gets to stand brace-free, nodding at the neighbors and raising his mug at them like he’s part of it all.

Like he doesn’t have a brother in heaven, a working knowledge of hell, and a back brace care of a dying angel.

“Dean, you want pancakes?”

He turns--slowly, because there it is, the first twinge of the day. He nods.

“Sounds good.”

Like he doesn’t have this guy filling up his kitchen, the one with no bed hair and no bags under the eyes. A here and now that’ll be six years going on seven when Sam has his birthday next month. 

Dean turns back to the window and carries on with his coffee as the butter hisses in the pan behind him. Sam opens a drawer and switches the radio on. No humming, there’s never any humming. But that’s okay. Dean never was much of a morning person, and the quiet is only one of many things he’s gotten used to over the years. Like the idea of Sam having a birthday again. When the hunts faded and the years in one place began, neither of them really knew what to do with it.

Sam, of course, wasn’t bothered. But the second year he shrugged and looked puzzled when Dean brought it up and handed him something, Dean broke a plate, his own hand, and then Sam’s lip. Right before he drank too much, threw up his meds, and passed out in a maudlin heap in the front yard.

No way Sam could have the real day again, so they settled on the day he’d woken up in a field, thirsty and mildly confused as to why his bones were whole before Lucifer was through breaking every single one.

Sam being Sam, with or without a soul, had gotten hold of the day, date and place as soon as he was topside. Then he’d eaten, drunk, gotten laid, and finally spared a thought for how his immediate family might be doing. The fact that Sam tried for Cas and found Samuel before a djin brought him anywhere near his brother, let Dean know long ago that he really could have picked any day to celebrate.

Still, in year three Sam remembered not to leave the gift unopened on the breakfast table.

Now he smiles, saves the paper, and carefully marks Dean’s on the calendar.

“Maple or Log Cabin?”

Sam’s voice brings him back to what matters this morning.

“Suprise me.”

That gets him a shrug and both syrups on the table. “Your arteries. Knock yourself out.”

He bites his lip as he lowers himself down to the chair Sam has already pulled out. Dean can feel him glancing over while he multi-tasks a stack of pancakes, another coffee, and the possibility of Dean missing the chair entirely.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he says when he gets there and groans.

“What?”

Sam turns from the pan, spatula in hand. Clearly, the pancakes were getting most of the attention.

“Nothing.” Dean shakes his head and smiles to himself. He wraps his hands around his refilled coffee and wonders at a world where Sam caring about pancakes done just right matters more than Dean getting to the table in one piece. Sometimes such a world is not okay, but watching Sammy’s soul rip its way through a hole in the cage and go up, up, up...well, that had helped. Had made the pain of three fused discs and Cas getting burned up hauling Dean’s broken ass off the top of the damn cage worth it. Dean hadn’t meant to fall like that, hadn’t meant to leave Cas to punch the hole and drag Sammy out and up all by himself.

“Here.”

Four pills on the table next to a glass of juice. There’ll be five at lunchtime and another four at night. With maybe a couple of extras along the way if he does too much. He scoops them up, and when he’s done there’s a plate of pancakes in front of him.

He gets that Sam is a creature of habit with him. When Dean is tired or hurting, he looks for and sees affection, concern, desire. Which he gives back in spades to a brother who makes all the right noises in all the right places until the sun comes up. He tries hard not to think it might simply be some kind of muscle memory. What if all Dean has really done, is train him well?

Dean shakes himself and focuses down. On the pancakes cooked to perfection right under his nose.

“Thanks,” he says, smile genuine. Sam is an _awesome_ cook now.

They eat across from each other in companionable silence – Dean has those down to a fine art these days. Sam methodically mops up the last of his syrup and looks out the window. “I’m going up on the roof today - want to supervise?”

“What, stand there and criticize while you do it wrong? Absolutely.”

“I’ll need you to hand me things one at a time. You can do it through the skylight.”

They lost a whole bunch of tiles in last week’s storm and god knows what’s been clogging up the guttering since then. Dean sips at his second coffee, eyes the way Sam’s hand is awkwardly moving the last triangle of pancake around the plate.

“Just wear your fucking gloves, okay? I bought them for a reason.”

Sam has the beginnings of rheumatism in his hands. He’s also got far more gray at his temples than Dean because, apparently, a soul really is what keeps you young. Back brace and mobility issues aside, Dean can’t help but get a kick out of that sometimes.

“I will. They help a lot.”

He also wishes he could be so goddamn matter-of-fact about his own aches and pains. Dean swears, if Sam lost a leg he’d sew up half his pants, sell the rest, and have crutches down inside a week.

“You coming?” Sam is already up and clattering dishes into the sink.

Dean thinks about it, but he’s only halfway through his coffee and getting up is going to be a bitch without his brace. He’d rather do it alone.

“In a bit. You go. Oh, and...” Sam turns at the door. “Don’t kill the cat if it’s up there. I ain’t explaining another dead pet to Nancy.”

“Hey, that fucker bit me. Don’t be long.”

Dean turns back to his coffee, reminded once again of the downside to all this matter-of-factness. Nancy is their neighbor, seventy, blue rinse, apple pies and church on Sunday. The whole nine yards, including a beloved cat. Which bit Sam and was no more.

Dean took the fall for that one; said he backed over it coming out of the garage. Then he sat Sam down and explained why they were going to the shelter to get her a replacement, and why a pet pissing him off was nowhere near the same as a skinwalker doing it.

Sam nodded and shrugged – his default position for most of Dean’s lectures. And then he’d concentrated ridiculously hard on picking out an exact same kitten. 

“Dude. It’s dead. She knows it’s fucking dead. It does not have to look the same, you idiot.”

But Sam, as literal as ever, had taken Dean’s words to heart.

Or to brain.

Or to wherever he files the details of their life away.

 

Dean finishes his coffee and takes a deep breath. Shit, this is going to hurt, he should’ve put his brace—

“Hey.”

A quiet voice next to him and there it is on the table, sigils and wards stitched into the lightest metal either of them has ever come across. Which is how he knows it came from Castiel, because he’s pretty damn sure if such a metal existed here on earth, every prosthetic and brace in the world would be made of it.

It was just there on his hospital bed when he came to. Much like Sam was. He’s never seen Cas since and he made his peace with that eventually. On bad days, he likes to picture Cas and Sammy playing chess for some reason, up there in a corner of heaven where no one bothers them, and where Sammy can get his geek on forever and ever.

He clears his throat, fingers the stitching. “Thought you were on the roof.”

“I will be in a minute. C’mon, let’s get you up.”

Sam bends, takes hold of his elbow and shoulder. “Ready?”

All Dean can do is nod, because the hands that raise him are one thing- Dean showed Sam early on how to get him up if he ever got stuck.

But the kiss to his temple once they straighten? 

Dean never showed him that. 

******


End file.
